Bookies back to winning ways after lucrative National meeting

Just three weeks after a ‘worst ever’ Cheltenham Festival, Aintree’s Grand National meeting proved to be pay-back time for bookmakers. According to experts from bettingexpert.com, the bookies raked in an estimated £16.50 per person over the three days.

Ladies Day (8 April) was the poorest day for the punters, as not one favourite managed to win a race, leaving bookmakers’ satchels stuffed with over £11 per punter. Both Thursday (7 April) and Saturday (9 April) saw average losses for punters of more than £2 a head.

Profits were likely pushed up by soaring viewing figures, as a record 10 million tuned in for the world’s most famous race at the revised time of 5.15 pm on Saturday. With over 35 million bets expected to have been wagered on the Grand National, bettingexpert.com estimates that the bookies cleaned up at least £75 million on the Saturday alone.

Stephen Harris, Horse Racing Editor at Better Collective, said: “Although it was probably the highest class three days of horse racing that Aintree has ever seen, it was also an extremely tricky 72 hours of punting. Still, those who took advantage of the record 10 winning favourites at Cheltenham probably had a healthy pot to play with.”

Followers of bettingexpert.com were provided with a great case for backing National winner Rule The World, with research provided strongly suggesting that a nine-year-old making their debut in the big race would be victorious.

Jesper Søgaard, CEO and co-founder of Better Collective, who developed and delivered bettingexpert.com, said: “Across the board it looked a difficult week for punters. Still, here at bettingexpert.com we provided enough ammunition to put up a good fight against the bookmakers – not least our study which concretely predicted the profile of the winner, Rule The World.”